


Child's Habit

by samlavie



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Child Abuse, Hurt Peter, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-03-16 03:51:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13628025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samlavie/pseuds/samlavie
Summary: Peter aches in the cold.Tony starts to notice.





	1. Chapter 1

“Peter,” says Mr. Stark, a pinched look about his face. “I –” He stops, that gruff exterior slipping ever so slightly to reveal the rumpled, haggard paleness that sticks like wet paint over his pursed features. “I need you to trust me, okay? Not like – _full_ trust, the blind kind – but the one where you don’t, you know, lie right to my face and expect me to, like, believe it? And not question it?”

Peter doesn’t exactly answer, he doesn’t think he can.

Instinctively his right hand draws up to his right elbow, fingers grappling through the fabric to feel the disjointed fracture of bones that have never quite healed correctly, even after all these years. It aches with a burning fervor, straining under spasming muscle and twinging painfully with every front of cold that sweeps through him.

He’s always hated the cold.

He doesn’t quite manage to speak in time to avoid suspicion. Already, there’s a speculative look in Mr. Stark’s eyes. The way he narrows his eyes whenever something problematic arises in the lab, interest piqued irreversibly, and mind set on that particular string of damaged code or malfunctioning wire or in this case, his half-fake intern’s peculiar behavior.

“I – I’m fine, Mr. Stark.” He answers, knowing that somehow, he’s worsened his situation, because Mr. Stark doesn’t just look speculative anymore, he now looks speculative _and_ suspicious. Peter makes an aborted movement to wave his hands, as if to ward away the man’s daunting interest, but instead only makes a weird flappy motion due to him _still_ clutching his elbow which is _really_ starting to throb like a _fudger_. “Really, Mr. Stark. I’m, uh, perfectly okay. Peachy. Really. I just, I’m tired is all, you know? Homework and uh, Spider-Man-ing, and um, Decathalon! It’s been just really busy, Mr. Stark. I, uh, I’ve just been, uh, not sleeping as much, and, yeah…”

There’s a beat of silence.

Peter firmly resists the urge to squirm under Mr. Stark’s half-eyebrow-raise incredulous stare.

“Oh really.”

“Uh. Um, yeah.”

The incredulousness fades and it’s replaced by a bone-deep weariness and Peter feels acutely guilty. Mr. Stark scrubs his face with one hand and sighs deeply.

“Kid,” he says, tired. “I know you. At least, I think I know pretty well. And you are a horrible liar. Subpar. Really, we should get you lessons or something – wait, no, scratch that. I think I’d go prematurely grey if you learned to lie good on top of the already heart-attack inducing habits you have that often how to do with not _dodging a bullet_ -”

Peter winces at the mention of _that_ incident. That’d been one of the longest and most painful lectures he’d endured since that time he’d made fun of that kid with the lisp in fourth grade. Swallowing nervously, Peter shoves those thoughts _far_ , far away. His shoulders hitch without conscious thought.

Another sigh. Mr. Stark looks beat.

“Look. Kid. I need you to, I don’t know, _try_ –” he gestures to the air between the two of them, stifled with tension, “and trust me here. Anything. I just. You’ve been acting like, I don’t know, some sort of skittish bird or something these last few weeks and me, being the responsible, caring adult that I am, am concerned. You know. Like any _reasonable adult_ would be.”

“I – it’s nothing, Mr. Stark.”

Mr. Stark’s expression shutters and Peter aches more than before, this time it isn’t just his elbow that beats a painful thrum under his hand. He thinks his heart hurts too.

“Then what’s up with the arm.”

Peter flinches violently, his hand releasing said arm with a jerk, as if burned.

“I – I don’t –”

“What’d you do? I’ve seen you rub at it every day for the past two weeks. Why isn’t it healing?” A gleam enters Mr. Stark’s eyes, hard and unyielding. “Are you sick? Can spiders even get sick? Don’t answer that. The question is, why haven’t you healed yet, and why haven’t you seen me about it?”

_“MAY! MAY! PLEASE! OPEN – OPEN – OPEN! PLEASE!”_

Peter swallows, the crunch of bone and squelch of muscle echoing in his ear like a war drum, loud and hollow.

“From a fight I got into,” he says, truthfully. “A mugger,” he lies. “It – It’s nothing Mr. Stark. Really. Just aches is all, when it gets cold.”

Mr. Stark narrows his eyes. “Uhuh,” he says, unconvinced. “Remember that conversation we had, like, thirty seconds ago? The one about lying? And you’re inability to? Yeah, huh. I know. Try again.”

_“Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. Oh jeez. May. Aunt May. Please. Please just let go. I’ll leave. I promise. I swear I’ll leave, please let go, please let go, please. I’ll leave, I swear. I’ll disappear, you’ll never hear from me again. I promise.”_

“It’s nothing.”

Mr. Stark stares, unimpressed. Then, “Alright then. C’mon. We’ve been standing for like, five minutes and my old man knees are creaking like the chariot wheels of Satan. Let’s move down to the lab and get that suit of your upgraded, yeah?”

Grateful, Peter nods and says quietly with a bare, naked sort of gratitude, “Thank you, Mr. Stark.”

Mr. Stark look uncomfortable for a split second of a second, before he rolls his eyes and waves a hand, as if to physically swat away his affection. “Whatever. Let’s get moving. C’mon, move it. Jeez, slowpoke, wanna grab shot of speed on your way down, _jeez_ , and they say _I’m_ old.”

_“May, p-please. Please, please M-May. Open the door. Ple-ee-ase.”_

_Stifled sobs and an encroaching numbness are his only companions that night._


	2. Chapter 2

When Tony enters the kid’s life, he doesn’t take much stock in his aunt’s pinched expression or the way her smile turns small and sharp. He mistakes it for some semblance of maternal worry, misplaces it as her just being an aunt, going grey over a teenager too smart and too strong for his own good.

He ignores it, because what right does he have to tell her that her son – _nephew_ , will be just fine? He doesn’t even know if she knows about her nephew playing it up as vigilante every other night or not. More than that, even he doesn’t know how the confrontation with Cap will go, and he doesn’t want to jinx it by saying something to an aunt who will most likely try and strangle him if she knew where he was taking the kid.

So, he ignores it.

Ignores the way Peter looks sick at the accusation of lying to his aunt, of not telling her about the grant. Ignores the way Peter looks his way for a split second of a second, eyes impossibly wide and _pleading_.

He leaves just as soon as he comes, the promise of Happy coming to pick up the boy on his lips and a smarmy smile decorating his face.

He doesn’t hear much of what happens behind him.

Not the stuttering apologies that hiccup between whines and pleas.

Nor the _twang_ of metal as something hard and unrelenting snaps through the air.

And not the ensuing cries and muffled litany of ‘ _sorry_ ’s that rent the air, wet and hitching.

All he hears is the rising cacophony of suburb Queens, a swelling tide of skittering tires, humorous slices of life, and the staccato beat of honking vehicles whose drivers hold licenses in aggressive tendencies. The day is a bright one, the sky clear of clouds and the sun a bright brand against steel blue.

He steps into the two-door and leaves.

*

Peter doesn’t know when it starts.

Ben’s death may have been the breaking point, the final lash that broke May’s back and split her in two. Or maybe it started even earlier, when Ben leaves for work and May comes home from her night shifts and Peter’s memory goes a little fuzzy around the edges. Perhaps it’s Peter’s birth. His adoption into her family. Or the conquests of childhood that had him asking questions over questions on topics most adults had a hard time answering to.

He only notices when he peeks into a mirror and sees more scar tissue than skin.

It’s in the little things, at first, he remembers.

Scissors and knifes handed to him blade first. Scalding pans handles and silly forgetfulness as water boils and sputters over burning stoves. Locked doors and late nights out, left out until the break of dawn till his aunt comes stumbling home. Home cooked meals ending in emergency visits and countless days walking from place to place. His shoes worn through until he could feel every micro-fracture and schism underfoot. His clothes torn and stained until the time he is tall enough to reach the knobs of the washer and dryer.

He’s thirteen when he approaches May.

He’s brand new. A super hero. He helps old ladies cross the street and fights muggers in the dead of night. He’s rescued a cat from a tree, saved a nest of pigeons from a collapsing construction site, and has helped seven kids with their algebra homework. He’s helping protect the city. He’s a hero, just like how Ben always said he was, even before the bite.

And his aunt hates him.

She doesn’t say it out loud. Her lips don’t move and her tongue doesn’t spell a single syllable. But her eyes narrow on him and her jaw turns sharp and she stands all stiff like, like he’s just caught her out in a lie, like he’s just spat on her shoes and called her a lying liar and that he never wants to see her again. Like the time he’d told Ben and her the same thing after they accused him of skating on his grades and being lazy when he was only _just trying to help and earn them money so they wouldn’t be evicted from their home._

When she’d looked at him like that, he’d pulled back, flinched, as if he’d been physically slapped – _because he might as well have._

“No,” she’d said, head swiveling from side to side as if she were trying to reassure him of something he knows is no longer true. “No, Peter. I don’t hate you.”

Peter accepts the lie because if he doesn’t, he’ll be all alone again and then he may well truly be an orphan.

Two days later, May comes home stumbling drunk, ire in her fists and a wild, caged look in her eyes. She doesn’t hit him. She doesn’t go near him. She avoids him, steps around him, and ignores his very existence, like he’s just some pesky drunken hallucination that should do the appreciated thing and _disappear_.

She vanishes into the bathroom and doesn’t return for the next six hours.

It’s after the first hour that Peters grows some courage because while he’s confused, he’s concerned, and he needs to know if aunt May is alright, if she hasn’t choked on her vomit or somehow impaled herself on the plunger just behind the toilet. He thinks that maybe he can hold her hair back if she is puking, just like how Ben used to for him, for her.

He pinches open the door so that it’s just a slit and he frowns because the light of the bathroom isn’t even on and is _May even alive?_ He opens it some more, reaches in to throw up the switch that’s two feet to the right from the door, and screams even before he recognizes the pain of his arm suddenly being pinned to the door frame, wood crushing into his elbow at uncomfortable angles, because May’s suddenly right there, screaming just as loud as he is, and right into his face.

“WHAT’RE YOU DOING!? WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? GO! GO AWAY!”

There’s spittle flying from her cracked lips, her hair thrown up in all forms of disarray, wisps of brown and silver and blond curling beneath the fluorescent spotlights of the bathroom mirror like a million weeds wilting under the sun. Her face is sunken and her eyes are wider than they’ve ever been, blown black and swallowing him whole in the mindless hate that coils within.

He sobs because this level of pain is something new, something he’s never experienced before aside from the brief minutes lying in his bed that night after the spider bite, contemplating his death as his body refused to move.

Now, all he can do is move.

He tries to yank his arm back, feet stumbling over one another in his panic as his nerves burst alight with every pull and tug he gives.

“GET OUT!” screams his aunt, something hysterical in the jerky gasps she heaves. She pushes harder on the door, kicking its seam with her feet and hands. “GET OUT – GET OUT – GET OUT!”

She kicks another time and Peter screams as something pops and suddenly he can’t pull anymore because every time he does, bile sears his nostrils and singes the back of his throat. He can’t see much, only the blurry white suns that peek over May’s frazzled hair and the smeared visage of her red face in his own, mouth gaping open in silent screams as she screeches at him.

He tries to scream, hiccupping and trying to breathe through the agony that lances through his arm and down his spine with every kick and shove she gives at the door. He screams at her to open the door, _please_. To let him go, to let him leave because he will, _I’ll leave_ , but she’s deaf to his cries, something senseless and fanatic in the frantic way she blocks the door and shrieks into his ear, bellowing his name in that same passionate voice of hers, only this time scathing and hateful and –

_“I don’t hate you.”_

May doesn’t hate him.

She can’t.

*

His elbow doesn’t heal like it’s supposed to.

When he pulls it from the door’s hinges four hours later, he can’t feel it. It hangs at his side, useless. May has long since secluded herself to the bathtub of the bathroom, silent and still, but Peter hasn’t been able to get to his feet for a while now, because every time he tries, his stomach heaves and his heart pulses irregularly.

So, he’d sat there, leaned over his knees and one arm awkwardly raised from where it’s crusted between metal and wood, blood a bright smear of color on the otherwise dreary slab of artificial white, marking his agony for all to see in violent arc of crimson and speckled freckles of pink tissue and ruined muscle.

He thinks it begins to heal somewhere around the third hour mark.

He can’t touch it for the next day without throwing up.

It heals without being set and so, every winter and rainy day, his muscles spasm and his bones jerk as if rusted together, but he won’t complain, because May is his aunt. She’s all he has left. She’s the single thing keeping him from becoming an orphan.

He loves her.

He has to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well jolly gee, thank you guys for the responses to the story! I'd just written shit cuz I wanted to just do something with Tony, but then it ran into Peter, and then his elbow, and I was like, the fuck not? May's been there for him his entire life in all these series as the most lovable sweet person you'd ever meet. Let's fuck it up.
> 
> Anyway, really. Thank you guys for the comments, kudos, and bookmarks. I'm pretty new to this site so if you have any tips, I'd love to hear it.
> 
> Again, again. Thank you all.


	3. Chapter 3

_1\. weird around doorways_

“Uh, kid, what’s with the cut and jump huh? You trying to one up me in my own building?”

“Uh, er, I – No, Mr. Stark. I’m – sorry. Sorry, it’s just, uh, habit. I guess.”

_2\. doorways. elbow?_

“What’s up with the arm?”

“N – Nothing. Mr. Stark.”

_3\. food. won’t eat but will take leftovers no matter what_

“Not hungry? And here I thought you were willing to ‘scrounge up every morsel’ of that pizza in order to, and I’m quoting here, ‘gobble it up ‘cause I don’t want to die without pizza sauce in my stomach’. ‘Just not the way to go’, if I remember right.”

“Um, uh. Ha. Wow, jeez, did I say that? I mean, I guess at the time I might’ve been – uh. I’m just not very hungry right now, Mr. Stark. I’ll uh, just, could I maybe take it to go?”

_4\. bipolar? acts all jumpy then zones out_

“Kid? Hello? Anyone in there? Iron Man to extremely dorky, prepubescent girl? Come in?”

“M – Mr. Stark? I – er. Sorry, I guess I got… caught up… in something…”

“Uhuh.”

_5\. problem with being handed things ******?**_

“Here, that should have all the new upgrades listed. Take a gander and tell me… Kid. Here. Take it. Don’t make me beg.”

“I – I can just take a look later, right? Mr. Stark? Could you – Could you just, email it to me? I – I mean, I –”

_6\. May?_

Tony taps his fingers over the absolutely _not_ stalkerish scrawl of notes he has cradled in his lap, fingertips dancing over the indented paper with faux gentleness as he eyes the pathetic bit of information he’s gathered so far. Idly, his thumb lingers on the latest note, the pad of his thumb tracing the penned, brutish marks of his distinct chicken scratch.

It’s the newest one and its freshness shows in the smear of blue ink that follows the graze of his finger.

_**May?** _

Peter had been going on about some nerd fest or another, a trip into downstate New York, wherein the kid would join the rest of his dorky and incredibly awkward peers and spout a bunch of smart shit at buzzers and long-suffering judges living check by check who absolutely needed a raise – if not for their own sanity, then for Tony’s because one day someone is going to snap and Tony doesn’t think he can handle going into cardiac arrest if the kid goes flying through another building. _That first time had been enough._

In an offhanded and completely casual way, Tony had made some teasing remark, absent mindedly and without any real bite, about the kid needing an actual adult to sign off on the trip, _right? Because you’re like twelve and children need big grown up people to make big grown up decisions for them, right? Did May give the green light to your little nerd orgy?_

The kid had frozen up, all sick and honest to god terrified, as if he were only steps away from being water boarded (and fuck that comparison scared the shit out of him). It’d knocked Tony’s bullshit meter slightly off skew and for a second there, he’d been worried that he’d scarred the kid’s poor virgin ears. But it couldn’t have been that, not with how the kid had reacted. It was something more, and he’d sat up and taken notice.

Of the rigid lines of the kid’s hitched shoulders and the thin, taut line of the kid’s pinched lips and the sallow note that crawled across his thin cheeks.

And then the kid was laughing, a little too loud and a little too grating. _Ha, I – wow, I totally forgot to ask her. I guess I’ll, guess I’ll have to do that. Huh._

It’d been like watching a man being led to the gallows, noose already a loose tie around their neck and death a common, too sought-after companion to be much afraid of. It’d been terrifying, watching the way the kid had swallowed almost painfully and carefully tightened his jaw, as if preparing for some nail-pulling level of torture.

But it was just May, right?

Tony sighs noisily, nose scrunching as the beginnings of frustration begin to encroach, eyes stinging and brain thumping miserably.

“Argh,” says Tony.

“What is it Tony.”

The billionaire nearly seizes right then and there but luckily for his continuing health, he manages only to jerk about three inches to left and back, hand coming up to his heart. He breathes heavily. “Jesus Rhodey where the fuck did you come from?”

His best friend glares balefully from across lounge, dressed in stocky blues and boring grays and looking so put-upon that Tony feels almost personally insulted. Rhodes gestures to the notepad that’d been flung from the other’s grasp in surprise, to where it lies innocently between them on the wide, open plain floor.

“I’ve been here for the past three hours, Tony.” He says, as if explaining a particularly challenging problem to a particularly dimwitted child. He waves a hand to the laptop he has propped on his braced legs. “You know, resignation forms, news, and all that?”

Tony bites back the flinch at the stark reminder that James “War Hero” Rhodes will no longer be serving as his destined ‘military man’. Not anymore.

Rhodey reclines and scrubs a hand down the side of his jaw before looking pointedly at the flimsy pad of paper that maintains its stout division between the two. “What’s up with you, Tones,” asks the weary man, so very tired as he most likely will remain until he manages to give himself rest from the constant physical therapy. He inclines his head. “The only time you write on paper is when you’re avoiding thinking about something. Please tell me this isn’t another one of your sexual crises – oh god is this about Martha Stewert, please tell me this isn’t about –”

“It’s not about Martha Stewert,” interrupts Tony quickly. “That was a one-time thing and it will never happen again so long as my di –”

“Right, right, of course,” pleads Rhodey, “just stop!”

Tony reclines back into his seat, wriggling until he’s nearly up on his haunches, elbows balanced precariously on his raised knees. He rests his chin on his forearms and when he speaks, his entire head jumps, lower jaw held still. “Don’t tell me you’re still traumatized about little ol’ –”

“Yes,” answers Rhodey quickly. “Yes I am. Never will I ever not be forever scarred by your recounting of that horrible nightmare of a one night stand. I’d rather leap off this building than –”

Tony rolls his eyes exaggeratingly, groaning, “Alright _sugarplum_ , I get it, you big wussy.”

There’s a beat of silence, wherein only the staccato clicking of the Rhodey’s noisy keyboard fills the ringing quiet.

Eventually, however, this is abandoned when Tony muffles another groan into his arms. When Rhodey looks up, face deadpan, and spies the billionaire gnawing on his unclothed arm, the ex-soldier grimaces.

“Dude, gross.”

“Shush,” is Tony’s only muffled reply.

Rhodey shakes his head, sighs, and snaps the laptop closed. Tony’s eyes catch his and there’s a small softening to the man’s face – one that Tony knows well he does not deserve, and one that Tony will forever remain selfishly comforted by.

*****

Spider-Man hooks a finger under the drowsy eyed man’s vest and _tugs_ until black-blown pupils are centimeters from the blank white spectacles of the Spider Suit. It’s easy enough to smell the alcohol on the man. It wafts in thick streams of repugnant, cloying mists of tangy cherry, lined by the salty musk of sex and bitter sweat.

“ _Ew_ dude,” he snorts as he pushes the man away, who stumbles into the closest questionably upright wall with a loud, drunken guffaw. “Do you _bathe_?”

“Sometimes,” slurs the grinning man. “You gonna help me wit tha’ Spidey?”

Spider-Man waves a hand, as if to smack the offending stench away from his masked face before shaking his head. “No way. It’s like four in the morning and I don’t swing that way.” _Plus I got a Calculus test tomorrow – today, crap._ “Also, I’m like, super self-conscious and you’re like super drunk, so no beuno?”

“That ain’t ah no –”

“I literally said ‘No way’.”

The man smacks the side of his face in a not so illustrated attempt to gesture to his ear. “Questionable hearing.” A pause. “’Cause I’m drunk as _shiii_ –”

“Alriiight-y then,” cuts in Spider-Man, reeling back on his heels, “I think that’s enough blasphemous curses for my pour virgin ears tonight.” He comes around to the older man’s side and hoists him to his side with a firm arm, supporting his weight with flaccid ease. “Let’s get you somewhere that doesn’t reek of murder and death, yeah? How’bout that. You wanna go home? Bus station? Homeless shelter? You have five seconds till I pull out eeny-meeny-miny-moe.”

“Ahhhh, I dunno. Yer not givin’ me a lot of options here Spidey. How ‘bout we head home together, huh? You got a nice, perky ass, fit enough for –”

“Homeless shelter coming right up,” says Peter, and hefts the man over one shoulder in a fireman’s carry and begins his sprint.

It’s the safest place other than the guy’s home – if he had one.

“Daaamn, Spidey, you got a _thick_ —”

Peter groans and makes an aborted gesture that resembles more of a strangle than a swat. “Stop it dude, I’m trying save you. Can’t you be grateful and stop harassing Spider-Man? I’m gonna have to start charging you for every leer soon and I don’t think you—"

The dude groans and let out a belch – it’s like he’s a child and Peter’s the mother and this is some sort of pat-on-back sort of deal. Peter’s weirdly grossed out by this and resolutely shoves the image to the back of his mind, never to be seen again save for the most terrible of night terrors.

*****

In the end, Peter doesn’t reach home until somewhere near three in the morning. It’s still winter so it’s a bit hard to grapple rightly with the ice slicked bricks of the apartment complex. The sill of his window proves even more hardy than the walls he struggles quietly to stick nicely to and he curses silently through his mask, irritated at not only the how dismal a friend his normal escape rout is proving to be, but also at the stench of alcohol that wafts from his suit and up into his overly sensitive nostrils. The scent is bitter and saccharinely sweet, to a nauseating degree – to the point of his fingers fumbling like a drunkard’s in an attempt to burglary-style steal away into his room.

With a wet _shliick_ , the bottom panel of his windowsill reluctantly joins with its topmost half.

Peter gives a quiet hoot before flinging himself through the narrow opening. In an effort to prove to him the universe’s frugal attempts to sabotage him, his head kisses the bottom half of the window with a jarring thwack. He curses, not so quietly, and stumbles past the breach of his meager bedroom. With the universe’s ever pressing urge to absolutely cajole him into a coma, Peter’s aching heels conform to the scattered, broken bodies of previous Lego creations and he hisses at the assault as he flings his arms out wildly to catch his unwitting trip past the metal frame of his bunkbed and the biting corners of his slumped dresser.

“Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck—”

Something loud erupts out in the hall, just past his door. He recognizes it immediately, horror flushing him pale and ashen and oh, he’s _fucked_. It’s the sound a door slamming open, metal knob ringing against plaster – a warning.

He’s tripping over himself trying to desperately strip himself of the Spider-Man suit, breath sharp and quick and fingers numb and yet trembling as they hurry to yank off the super, much too tight full body costume.

Each beat of a foot against the creaking, weary floorboards of the hall is another form of torture all together. With each thump, his brief, infinitesimal moment of opportunity is fleeing. If he gets caught _inside of a damn spider suit…_

His stomach knots and his throat collapses, practically stealing him of the remaining air he so wishes he had. He’s shaking too hard, his bones almost shivering beneath his skin. He tries not to start crying. He knows it’s stupid, not to mention childish, and he’s not a kid. He’s a freaking superhero, for God’s sake! He _saves_ people! He’s helped the _Avengers_ save people!

His small, savored moment of confidence shatters with the snap of his door as it meets the scarred wood of his dresser. Like his voice, that sliver of assurance is stolen away, shunted and collapsed, swallowed by the presiding misery not quite yet drowning him. Maybe he can talk his way out of this. Maybe—

“Peter?”

It’s the quiet in her voice. The soft, falseness of it that tells him she’s furious.

He discreetly, as much as his quaking limbs will allow, shoves the suit beneath his bed. He’s near naked now, saved only by the elastic strap of his boxers. Pathetically enough, he savors it as if its his last line of defense. Like it’s almost armor, an elixir to shield some small part of him from some swipe of a lumbering monster.

Aunt May brushes a bit of her hair from her eyes, tucking the brown strands behind an ear with _false_ gentility. She tilts her head and steps further into the room. “Peter, what’s that smell—”

Dread ignites into an all-enveloping wreath of terror. The drunkard— _that fucking bastard_ —He fumbles forward, willing his throat to work with him, just this once. Stilted silence is all that answers him. His aunt frowns, the expression barely visible in the backlit silhouette of her robed figure. She closes the door behind her, and Peter watches, dispassionately, as the silver tongue clicks shut, sending forth a tsunami of finality.

*****

“What about after?” questions Rhodey, something queer on his face.

Tony regards the man strangely, curious, and says in halting, deferring words, “What do you mean, after?”

“The after. After the fieldtrip, or the time before he left – right after he saw his aunt.”

Tony quiets. His lips flatten, so does his face. There’s an inscrutable look on him, scantly feeling and grossly cold. Rhodey watches silently, gut churning, as the billionaire draws himself in slightly, as if to shelter some kernel of warmth at the center of his chest. Clearly, something has crossed the man’s mind. And it terrifies Tony.

Rhodey feels apprehensive all at once and makes to get up – but all he can do is arch forward, legs useless branches of nerveless meat and hands hovering awkwardly, as if to pat air in fruitless hope to comfort and negate.

Tony makes a face and Rhodey watches as the man’s fingers twist, knuckles bleaching white with the quiet strain they seem to be wringing with. “No,” mutters his friend, entirely to himself and with the distinct muster of something small and beseeching. “No, no, no,” says Tony. “That’s wrong. That wouldn’t – He’d tell – No.”

Tony’s eyes are affixed to the dusk streaked linoleum tiles of the TV room, wide and searching but far gone – a continent’s away. He mutters to himself more, that tell-tale rush of hysteria edging his rapid scramble of non-sensical rambling, “That’s not right. I’m wrong – I’ve been wrong before, I mean think of Ca – But then – No, Happy would’ve – but that first – I heard something –”

“Tony!”

The man doesn’t react, doesn’t even falter to his vomit of mismatched words and half turned phrases, and instead ducks his head, fingers digging into his scalp and shoulders taut lines of long-limbed breadth. They scrub through his hair, the slightest tremble to their frantic wanderings.

“Wrong,” mumbles Tony, a sharp reproof in his words. “I wouldn’t not see –”

Rhodey watches the man freeze and then stumble in his streams of babbling dialogue, chin lifted and eyes caught on the innocent flap of paper that has since yet remained where it’s been thrown, a splotch of white that demurs its presence by peacefully residing clear of the stark grey lines that thatch the floor paneling.

“Tones,” murmurs Rhodey carefully. “Tell me what’s wrong. I can’t –” he gestures to wide breadth of floor separating them, “exactly come over and help if you’re having, a panic attack, or something.”

“Peter,” is what he says, a thousand-mile stare affixing to Rhodey’s general location. He blinks, and the distance breaks from his stare. He stands up, snatches his phone from his back pocket, and snaps it on, dialing rapidly.

Rhodey watches, wary, as his friend redials once, twice. Tony begins typing, thumbs blurring over the semi-transparent screen of his mobile. Texting, he guesses, the kid. Clearly, he must have been right in his assumption – for all that he wished he hadn’t. A stone settles atop his tongue, heart aching.

“He’s not—” The look of genuine befuddlement that crosses the billionaire’s face serves only to draw Rhodey’s heart even further up his chest. “Why is he not answering?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took forever to write. Thank you for the patience, guys.


End file.
